Description text
Setting up the framework is simple. Let's observe some characters, let's call them for simplicity the men with bowler hats who on a clear day with the blue sky, float in the air, are suspended over an urban landscape. In fact, we observe some very similar houses, very common houses in Belgium that Magritte paints with the windows closed and with the curtains all the same. Then we also see the profile of a house that occupies the entire right end of the picture and which in my opinion represents a real scenic backdrop. We observers, spectators of this surprising view with the suspended men, are on this side of space and we find ourselves in an observation point that could correspond to a window in a house.
According to some interpretations we could in turn be characters floating in the air, therefore imagining that we have others next to them, but the presence of this profile of the house on the right makes me think that Magritte wanted to place ourselves just as pure observers, detached spectators of this bizarre, unexpected and above all spectacular situation.
These human silhouettes that occupy the space are the focus of the work and I think it is important to thoroughly analyze their arrangement. Meanwhile, we note that these are male characters dressed in the same way and also with the same position of the legs and arms. There are small individual differences if we look in detail; someone holds a briefcase or business bag under their arm, someone keeps their hands in their pockets. The expressions and physiognomies are also slightly different. However, they are all standing up straight, wearing a tie, white shirt, overcoat and a bowler hat. It seems to see, as a glance, the same figure only oriented differently in space, someone is facing to the right, someone to the left.
We see many of these figures that occupy the entire visual space. We immediately notice that there is a rhythm, a precise distance between them. Magritte, to give us the idea of an endless repetition of this character, paints three different sizes that we can define as large, medium and small. These three types are respectively placed in space on three parallel planes placed at different distances from us observers.
Golconda is poetry in images. It is what looking from the window we could never see without the power of imagination.
Those looking for symbolic meanings in a painting, says Magritte, those who try hard to give a logical interpretation to what is shown, are unable to grasp its poetry.
And again, we can add, the very titles of Magritte's works have a meaning that is more evocative than semantic. Trying to interpret the title of his works literally we risk being misled. So the title is also poetry.
Ultimately Magritte warns us against trying to logically analyze his works of art and to seek a precise and unique meaning at all costs. The more we go into a rational and let's say scientific analysis of his paintings, the more we lose sight of their poetic aspect.
The need to search for meaning represents for the common man a foothold to cling to in order to bring back into the norm, within a conventional perimeter, what appears alienating and surreal.
Magritte tries through his works to destabilize us, to undermine our conventions in order to open up the mystery of life in front of us.
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31 янв 2021
